This is the only surviving Civil War–era US army structure in Southern California. It’s filled with artifacts from the years 1861–66 when this was a training center and supply depot for battlegrounds in Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico, and it’s run by a proper history lover who has cobbled together modest resources to find and display a Gatling gun, and an original 34-star flag from the battle of Vicksburg, and prepare exhibits on how the Civil War led to warfare innovations including such ‘advances’ as mines, submarines and torpedoes, aerial surveillance (via hot-air balloon) and the telegraph. California gold, by the way, paid for 25% of the Union’s war effort.
